The Spymaster's Lady

Twenty-three

IF ONE WISHES TO DO SECRET AND UNPLEASANT things to people, Annique thought, cellars are the logical place. It was not altogether surprising Grey should take her to one. It was not damp or sinister, being one of those basements half in, half above, the ground. The corridor was carpeted, the walls papered in a delicate pattern of blue flowers. All was deceptively ordinary. But the arched windows, high in the wall, were barred with iron grills that sank deep into the brick.

No escape. How thorough they are. She and the knowledge she carried were wholly at the disposal of the British Service. Doors, closed and threatening, waited on either side of the hall. He would take her behind one of them.

“They aren’t torture chambers.” Grey was annoyed. “Left side is workshops. Storage rooms on the other side. That one’s full of papers. Not an oubliette in the house. I’m not Leblanc.”

“You are more subtle than he is. Infinitely, evilly more subtle.” She wrapped her arms around her to control the shaking. He opened the last door on the right and went in before her. She did not know what would happen next, but she could not imagine Grey hurting her. Or Robert. Whichever one he was.

“You are not real.” She stood in the empty hallway. There was nowhere to run, after all. “I have been tearing my heart to pieces for a mountebank scarecrow. A puppet. I am the girl in the story who falls in love with a clockwork figure in the tower. I have thought myself very clever from time to time, but I am more stupid than dirt.”

Grey came back to the door. He had Robert’s face, but he was not Robert. “I’m not made of clockwork.”

“You. You do not exist at all. You are a nothing, Monsieur Grey. You are a shadow and a cloth flapping in the wind.”

“I am Robert Greyson Montclaire Fordham. Everything I told you is the truth—my parents, my brothers, the house in Somerset, the trout pond, the pony I taught to do tricks. I was Robert Fordham for twenty-six years before Grey ever existed.”

“You lied to me. You are nothing but lies to your back teeth.”

His grin showed exactly those teeth at her. “Then we’re well matched. Are you still afraid?”

“Of course I am afraid. I would be an imbecile not to be afraid.”

“You’re already over it. I won’t hurt a hair on your head and you know it. Come.” He took her hand and pulled her with him into the room which was, amazingly, a bath. It was shining clean and luxurious and surprised her considerably more than a dungeon would have.

“This is a bath,” she said stupidly.

“So it is. I hope you find that endlessly reassuring.”

“I do not want to be reassured. I want to escape.”

He laughed. He had betrayed her and decoyed her into this house and captured her and now he laughed at her. He was most definitely coldhearted as a clockwork.

She was confronted by a small, paneled room. The two arched windows were barred with iron latticework. She couldn’t see out of the milky glass, but, from the angle of the sun, she could tell the room faced south. A red rug from Turkey slanted across the black and white tile. A fire was just starting in the brick fireplace set in the wall. Beside the fire, a cheval glass reflected everything.

The bath was a huge, high-sided, oval tub of polished mahogany. Odd pipes emerged from the wall, with spigots upon them.

“This looks like an expensive brothel,” she said, knowing something of the matter, “except for that,” she gestured toward the pipes, “which looks like part of a brewery I saw in Munich once. What do you do with this?”

“It’s a bathtub. What do you think I do—stew prisoners in boiling oil?” He stomped over and opened spigots. They gave out water, which was logical, though she did not see how it could be hot. “My official torturer takes Wednesday off to practice on small animals. You’ll have to make do with me. If you’re wondering about the water—the other side of the wall is the kitchen stove and a hot water tank. I have ingenious drainage instead of servants running around with pails.”

Servants who might be bribed. They have thought of everything. “I see.”

“I thought you would. I’ll have this full in a minute. You get your clothes off.” He thrummed with hungry tension. Inside her, an answering tension arose.

“Do you think it is this simple between us? That you will ask, and I will take off my clothing?”

“I think it’s damn complicated between us. Always has been.” He shut the taps off and tested the water. “Not one bloody thing’s been simple so far. Why should this be?” When he came to her, he took hold of her carefully, as if she were breakable. He turned her to face away from him, toward the mirror. “We’ll take this one step at a time.” He set his hands to the shawl she was wearing and unwrapped it and dropped it on the floor. “This is the first step.”

“Why are you doing this? Why?”

“Taking your clothes off? Desperation. Madness. If you take a good look at me you’ll see I’m about to break apart.” His voice was tight and fierce, deep as a growl, unsteady at the edges. “Now we take your dress off. That’s the next step. Lots of knots to untie, aren’t there? Stop me if you have any real objections.”

“I do not even know what you want with me.”

“You’ll figure it out, clever girl that you are.”

“I do not mean at this moment, here. I mean…” She made the mistake of looking in the mirror. “I mean…” The mirror showed a perfect ragamuffin with parted lips and wide, staring eyes. Robert was in the mirror with her. His fingers were silk soft on her back, letting her dress loose.

“How can you be both of them?” Her voice came out young and bewildered. “Robert, how can you be Grey? I look at you and look at you, and you are both of them, and I think I will die of it.”

“Very unlikely.”

“I cannot do this with you when I do not even know who you are.” But she lied. It did not matter which man it was who made her feel this way.

“Let’s see if you can.” He plucked away at the knots.

She did not want this. She desired it with all her heart. She managed to do both at once, very strongly, with her mind entirely empty of thought the whole time.

He undid the last knot. In the mirror, he opened her dress and folded the edges back like petals and pulled it downward. No hurry. No hurry at all. Her dress slid away from her, a long, dark column collapsing.

He said, “You can’t imagine how much I hate this dress. I’ve wanted to rip it off you every minute of every day, morning till night. I’ve dreamed of doing this.”

“Robert did not want that.” Her voice had become husky. Her mind filled with imaginings so strong they were tongues of heat, lapping her thighs, licking inside her. She was melting like wax in his hands.

“Robert wanted it so much his teeth ached.” He lifted the pale shift from her shoulders and slid it off, uncovering her breasts, inch by inch. “I’m Robert. I know.”

Her hands clenched convulsively when the linen brushed by, falling. But she let it slip away. Let this happen to her.

She was naked and more naked. The brothels had mirrors like this. She had not known why. Now she did. It pulled at her mind, seeing herself naked with him. It made her only a woman with all her clothes off and the dark shape of a man behind her. Such elemental simplicity. It was obvious what she would soon do, that naked girl in the mirror.

She looked down so she would not see herself submitting in this idiotic way. The rug was rows of jewel-bright flowers. Around her feet spread the dark pool of her dress and her white shift. Grey knelt on the rug, on all those flowers, and unwrapped the rags that had held her knife, which she did not have, and had not once thought of using, anyway. Then her stockings fell, and she was stepping out of her shoes. His touch was velvet on her legs. She could not think at all.

“God, you’re beautiful.” His breath feathered across her skin as he stood. “Let’s put you in the tub while the water’s hot.” He pushed her gently in that direction, fingers on her bare back. “That’s right. Off you go.”

Maman would tell me to do what he asks. That is the path of the clever spy…to use her body to entice and control. But she was the one enticed. She did not become naked before Grey to be devious.

She stepped into the bath. Water steamed around her. All the little waves stroked at her as she lowered herself in. She slid down far into the water, sinking in it to her chin, and kept an eye on Grey.

Grey sat on the carved bench at the side of the room and untied his cravat. The bench had griffins on its arms and he hung his cravat over one of them, across its nose. He laid his jacket beside him on the bench. “We’ll wash your hair.”

“If you go away, I will wash anything you want me to.” All her many years as an agent had not prepared her for this. A decade cavorting with lions and demons in hell would not prepare one for this.

He smiled Robert’s smile, slow and warm. “Do you know that you become a complete vagabond the minute you set foot on the road—grimy and rumpled and chewing grass stems? I watched you get dirtier and more disreputable every ten paces. You have the most amazing protective coloration.”

She swallowed. “When one is a vagabond it is necessary to look and act like one and smell like one. I learned that before I could talk.”

“You’re not a vagabond now. You need your hair washed.” He thumbed the studs out of his cuffs and set them aside on top of his jacket. Then he began working on the buttons of his shirt, going from the collar downwards.

He would make love to her here. Would he carry her to the rug by the fire and lay her down in front of that mirror? She would see him twice—in truth and in the mirror. Would it feel like two men making love to her, Grey and Robert? She was completely daunted by this entire situation. She decided to spend a long time in the bathtub, thinking it over.

He tugged his shirt free from the band of his trousers and pulled it over his head. For the first time, she saw him unclothed.

He had the body of a soldier. The thin, white line on his ribs was a saber cut. The pitted marks were shrapnel, four or five pieces. There were other scars. Men had tried and tried to kill him. They had all failed because Grey was tough, right to the fiber, and also smarter than they were.

He jerked a boot off and shied it across the room to thump on the bricks of the hearth. Then he did the same to the other and stood and stretched. A hundred muscles slid under his skin. He was very beautiful. She wanted to rub across him everywhere with her mouth and the sensitive skin of her face. It was not fair that he should do this to her.

He strolled toward her. She would have sworn, without the smallest lie, that his eyes glowed like hot coals.

She huddled further into the water which was not a substance useful to hide in. When he leaned against the tub, his bare chest was so close she could have straightened and touched him with her lips, without the smallest difficulty. He cupped water with both hands. Drops spilled down through his fingers, silver and sparkling.

“My advice is, close your eyes,” he said.

She had not quite worked out what he meant before he dumped water upon her.

He said, “Not good at taking advice, are you?”

“I have been told that.” She sputtered water out of her mouth and wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand.

When he dipped another handful, she was more ready. Water poured in sheets across her face, again and again, until she was most thoroughly wet. She waited and dripped while he made lather in his hands from a soap that smelled of bay leaves. That was Robert’s smell, not Grey’s. She would smell like Robert when he made love to her.

When they made love…“You do not need to do this. I have been washing my hair entirely by myself for years and years.”

“It’ll be a change then. Keep your eyes shut when I put the soap on. I’m out of practice.”

She did not resist, but sat like a dolt while he scrubbed her hair efficiently. It was useless to reason with him. He was, as she knew, a man of unending ruthlessness.

“Hold your breath,” he ordered.

This time, she was wise. She grabbed a lungful of air before he pushed her down, under the water.

“Espèce de chien. You drown me.” She shook her head fiercely, getting water everywhere. Upon him too. “You had only to ask and I would…”

His fingers wove into her hair to hold her still. The first kiss, fierce as fire, was to silence her. Then he began little kisses, one after the other, along her lips…demanding and demanding till she kissed back. This was the only safe way to deal with a man of unending ruthlessness.

“I want you so damn much,” he whispered into her mouth. “It hasn’t stopped, not for a minute, since I saw you in Leblanc’s cellar. For days I’ve thought of nothing but stripping you naked. I’m nine-tenths mad with it.”

He tasted of cinnamon. It was ironic that a man like Grey should taste ordinary and domestic. It let him slip, somehow, through her defenses.

When he loosed her, she floated in the water, dizzy with wanting him.

Something fitted into the tub next to her. Then, on the other side. He was above her, naked, and eager for her as a stallion after a mare. He lowered himself into the tub. His skin was solid and warm and shocking as it slid against her. Altogether unfamiliar. This might have frightened her if she had been capable of any emotion at all, except being entirely overwhelmed by this turn of events.

She held tight to the rim of the tub. “You cannot do this.”

“Watch me.”

“I mean, you cannot do this in any case, but it is also physically impossible. There is no room.”

“We’ll find out. Hold on to me instead of the tub.” He put her hands on his shoulders. He made it seem sensible and natural. Water sloshed wildly as he circled her ribs and raised her up. Then he was underneath her, lifting her smoothly, and she was above him.

He smiled. “We fit just fine. See? Relax a bit, and I’ll…Yes. That’s right.” He centered her body upon his, and her legs parted. He guided her hips down upon him as if he had done this a thousand times with her. “Damn, that feels good.”

It was…extraordinary. She straddled him, riding him in the water, her legs wedged tight against the side of the tub. She was open. The maleness of him knew exactly where it belonged. It nudged at her, wanting to go in. Entirely ready to do so.

Time jogged to a stop. Nothing—no preconception, no advice—had prepared her for this.

His eyes were level with hers, inches away, filling the universe. “You’re still bruised.” He barely touched her ribs. “Here and here. I’ll be careful with you.”

He was a fighter with fists as hard as stone. He would be gentle with her. There could be nothing more devastating to her senses than that alliance. “It is not fair that you do this to me when I am a prisoner.”

“Is that what you’re telling yourself? That you’re doing this because you’re a prisoner?” He picked up soap from the dish on the little table and turned it over and over between his palms. “Then you just climb out of this tub and start yelling. Galba will be down in two minutes to rescue you. Hawker will cut out my liver and Doyle will stomp it into the ground. Or you can lay me out with one of those pokers over there by the fire. That should appeal to you.” He spread soap on her shoulder, taking his time. There were plans for her seduction in every small movement. He was a man of many successful plans. “You want this.”

“I do not…” She felt him draw the line of her collarbone with one soapy fingertip. “I do not want this. I will not.” When he returned to her shoulder, he made small circles there, playing among the nerves. He was barely touching. Was there anything in the world except his eyes? “I should not.”

“You keep working on that and let me know.” He smiled. “Did you ever have long hair, Annique?”

“When I lived with the Rom. It grew very long, all down my back.”

“I’d like to see your hair long.” He traced curvy lines on her chest, in the foam of soap. The prickle and slide wiped her mind utterly clean of thought. “It would flow down like this.” He showed the path long hair would fall. Down her shoulder and over her breast. Just the way it would flow down her, his skillful, slippery fingers flowed. “You have midnight hair, full of silk and hidden stars. You snare me past redemption.”

She had been told many times that she was beautiful, generally by men who then asked her price. This was different. It was Grey who found her beautiful. She had never cared before. “This is not wise. Not for either of us.”

“I know. We’re about to be very, very stupid.”

“We should stop.”

“You do that. I’m not going to.” He shifted in the water. Hard, male warmth slid against the parts of her that were secret and sensitive and not used to this irrational business. Hunger blossomed and burned. It spread everywhere inside her.

“I cannot think when you do this.”

“You don’t need to think. You already figured this out. Remember Plato? I’m the other half of your egg. We’re getting back together.”

“Maybe. I do not know. It was easier to talk about Plato when your hands were tied.” He explored her breasts, drawing trails of fire with little explosions of surprise at the peak. She swallowed hard. “It is beautiful, what you do to me. When I look at you, it is so beautiful it hurts. Like the curve of a wave or a leaf falling. Have I told you that?”

“Not in so many words.” He brought a nipple toward him so he could kiss it. “I like the way you nubble up here, all pink. Shows you like what I’m doing. You taste good.” Another kiss. “Soapy but good. I think I’ll do this for a while. Stop me when you stop liking it.”

She did not stop him. She let his mouth lead her through shock after shock into a spinning wildness. Heat burned in pulses. She groaned and threw her shoulders back and leaned toward him, yes, with all of her body. It was a yielding of everything.

She was part of the madness now. She was committed.

He knew the exact moment she gave in. He stirred strongly where they were nestled together between her legs. “I feel you enjoying it. You stir inside when I do this, down where we’re touching. You’ll like the rest of it, too.”

“I am…deciding.” Warm water lapped and eddied between them with every move. Hot shivers gripped and tugged at her. “Do not hurry me. I am still deciding whether…or not. Maybe not.”

“You keep thinking that. But it’s late for you. You haven’t been able to stop yourself for a while.”

He was right. She could not have drawn away from him to save her life.

He stroked down her belly to where she ached for him so much. He tangled his fingers in the small curls there. He did not touch within her. He could, at any moment. It was torment, knowing he would choose his own time to touch her there. Ribbons of longing spun through her, pulling and pulling. She moved upon him. “This is…I should not…”

“When you’re ready.” The flat planes of his abdomen were hard, quivering with tension where she braced her palms against him. His voice had deepened. Gone hoarse. His eyes were the color of smoke, with flame beneath. Hot. Ravenous. “We’ll wait till every part of you wants this.”

“No.” She could not stare into those eyes or she would be lost. She bent her head. Her hair hung in tendrils that swayed when she shook her head. “I…No.”

He took a deep breath and held still. He was ready beneath her, ready as iron. “What is it, Cub?” Careful, his hands shaking a little, he lifted her chin and searched her face. “I swear, I wouldn’t have you like this if I didn’t think you wanted it. What’s the matter?”

“I do not…I do not do this with English spies…” It came out in short, frantic breaths. “…who do not give a fig for me. And who…confuse me.”

“You don’t do this with anyone, according to the best available evidence. A man knows, at this point.” He lifted strands of her wet hair and pulled them back from her face, left and right. She had to look at him. Laughter and stark hunger and tenderness poured from him…and a shrewd understanding that scared her witless. “Give me a little credit, Cub. You want this. If you didn’t, I sure as hell wouldn’t be deflowering you in a bathtub.”

“I…”

“From the first, I’ve known. You. Only you. Inevitable.” His fingertips skimmed her cheek, then over her lips. She shuddered. They both knew what he was doing to her. “We’ll make it work. Trust me. Do you want to talk for a while?”

“I cannot. You distract me.”

Oh, but he thought that was very funny. He made the water shake with his laughter. “I think I’ll distract you some more.” He kissed one breast, then the other.

She ached. Already, she swayed in his hands, unable to stop herself. But he wanted the words of surrender also. He tormented them both with his foolish scruples. She was not so naïve to acquiesce to a man while he laughed at her.

She no longer cared whether it was wise or disastrous or merely inevitable. I need him. I will have him. He would see the surrender she made to him.

She gripped the side of the tub and rose up. He was ready. She thrust herself downward, hard.

A deep cry wrenched out of her. She felt tearing inside. The stab of pleasure hurt. It was honey sweet.

“Good…God.” Grey surged upward to meet her. “Wait.” He locked his hands to the bones of her hips and kept her tight to him, panting, face contorted. “Wait. Wait a damn minute.”

“Yes.” She held most totally motionless, stunned past thought.

“That was…That…” He sucked in a tremendous, shaky breath. “Annique, men like to be prepared for this sort of thing.” He held rigidly still, savage with need, shuddering with laughter. “You’ll be the death of me, woman. Does it hurt?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Yes. Not exactly. It feels different.”

“I imagine it does.” His hands clenched. Released. Stroked the length of her body. Clenched around her again. “Don’t move, or this is going to be remarkably…brief.” He took another deep, ragged breath. “I’d planned something slow and elaborate.”

Elaborate. He need not have worried. Inside her, things were extremely elaborate. She made some sound.

“I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time,” he said.

She wanted to tell him that she had, as well, waited for this. But she could not speak.

“Stay still now. I’ll try to go slow.” His fingers slid down to open soft, sensitive parts of her. He eased gradually deeper into her. Pain by pain. Pleasure by pleasure. He was smooth as the water swirling past, compelling as the pull of tides.

Thought quenched. She gasped and started to move upon him.

“Softly, love. Wait.”

“I…I cannot.”

“You can. Gently with yourself.” He pressed her hips down to him, holding her still. His other hand caressed persuasively, building a restless anxiety within her. “We’re in no hurry. See. It doesn’t hurt when you hold still. I do this, and there’s no pain at all.”

She did not try to answer. She had misplaced the ability to translate between French and English. An overmastering rhythm gripped her. She was frantic to ride upon him. It was impossible to keep still. He would make her insane. She made fists and hit upon his chest in great strokes, like a bell tolling, as she rocked. Upward. Down. He opened his hold and let her move upon him, deeply. He gasped each time.

Again. Again. A wall, solid and heavy as bricks, but made of burning light, grew around her. And crashed down. Over her. Everywhere.

He must have felt what happened within her. He thrust upward, deep inside. Yes. And yes. She threw her head back and cried out, altogether lost. Except that she must hold him, tight, tight to her.

It did not hurt. Nothing could hurt when she was like this.

Pleasure rushed in. Filled her. Jolts of it hit, spaced by the moans she made. It was limitless pleasure, orbed and blazing, that glowed and burned inside her. She felt herself closing over him again and again.

Time flowed once more. The edge of that glory slid across her and away. She collapsed, inch by inch, shaking and pulsing, onto him.

His arms wrapped around her. She lay her head upon his heart. It beat like a horse running, strong and even.

“I am glad I did this,” she whispered in French, “whatever comes after.”

She felt everywhere light as feathers, but when she tried to move, she found she was, on the contrary, heavy as lead. It was a good thing she had someone beneath her or she would probably have drowned.